


Vestibule of the Spine

by Nemonus, Riptor25



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Eris/Toland only if you don shipping goggles, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 21:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/pseuds/Nemonus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riptor25/pseuds/Riptor25
Summary: Eris Morn has asked for a Guardian to scout an unexplored section of the Dreadnaught. Laurel-13, young Iron Lord and collector of Hive legends, answers.





	Vestibule of the Spine

The Vanguard had broadcast a general announcement that the Dreadnaught was full of strange phenomena, so when Laurel-13 stepped into a new room it seemed no more dangerous than usual.

She first noticed the cliff off to one side of the vaulted room, and below it splashes and reflections that suggested uphill-flowing water. Thin spikes had webbed their way across what might once have been a door in the far wall opposite her, but the space between it and the river was large enough for five fireteams to sit. No way out except to go back, but no enemies either, nothing crawling up from the river. At each corner of the room, two bracing the left wall and two hugging the edge of the cliff, were intricate runes cut into the floor; etched by tool or by claw she couldn’t tell. A suggestion of whispering sounded almost familiar, close as a voice on the comm. The Vanguard had issued no special advisory, but something must be exceptional about this mission, since Eris had requested it specifically. On her first visit to the Dreadnaught, Laurel knew even less than other Guardians might about what to expect.

Eris Morn waited in silence somewhere on the comm. Could the noise have been her whispering? Had that happened in the transmat zone?

Just as the Warlock turned to leave, dust fell in a sheet from the grown-over doorway, as if something had disturbed the air.

Eris breathed a sigh that sounded like it echoed. “Something stirs here.”

The Guardian adjusted her grip on the pulse rifle she held, taking a careful look around her. The Ghost at her side followed her gaze.

Laurel had been reborn at a strange time, other Guardians sometimes said. Too late to see the Lunar Interdict and too early to see a time of peace, she had arrived just in time to take the golden mantle of the Iron Lords. She knew as little of their legacy as she did of the Tower when she was first raised, but she had clawed her way to glory there. The Hive, though, were like a mold on the world; toxic if you encountered enough of them, but easy to remove. She knew the stories of Crota and Oryx, legends even though they were only years old. Eris herself was the most present reminder of that time, but otherwise - the Hive were something between vermin and phantoms.

She was fascinated by them.

With most of the Tower’s assets directed towards the retaking of Earth’s various sectors, Laurel secretly yearned to go to the moon, to enter the Hellmouth, and to see what the Hive had carved into it with nothing but their claws and an unfathomable collective willpower. Eris knew more about them than anyone, so when she had been invited to this mission, Laurel had happily agreed.

“I don’t see anything, Eris,” her Ghost said, it’s voice betraying the nervousness they both felt.

Laurel-13 stepped forward, weapon ready. She could feel the energy of the Void pulsing through her, almost in sync with the quiet sound of Eris breathing over the comm.

“We will sound out the depths of the Hive magic here,” Eris said.

“Has anyone explored here before?” Laurel asked cautiously.

“No one. We are … as they say … bait. But we are also the teeth of the trap.”

Laurel was tempted to say _I’m honored_ , but thought that it might sound insincere. Eris was probably more used to hearing that sarcastically. _Too late. I’m honored._ Instead, she chose the more honest and hesitant route. “Bait?”

“Yes. But this place … there is something familiar about it. Those whispers in my ear …”

“I hear it too.”

Laurel wasn’t sure whether Eris was still standing with her wares in the Vanguard hall right now, but wherever she was, they must be Light-cursed strange acoustics to bounce through the comm with such conviction. She shifted, looking down again at the river that cut through the room.

“Was there any reason you didn’t request a full fireteam for this?” She asked, more to break the silence than out of curiosity.

“Secret steps make safer soldiers,” Eris half-sang.

“Cute. I’ll remember tha--wait. What was that?” Laurel’s Ghost said, quickly looking around the seemingly deserted crypt.

A single, thin scream echoed through the halls. The Warlock’s weapon snapped up as she sighted, trying to find the source of the cry.

Silently, she wished that it would only be that one cry, that it was a lone monster at the deep, deep bottom of the chasm. But then her hopes were dashed as the lone scream was answered in chorus.

“Eris, how active are the Hive in this area?” The Ghost asked, it’s worried voice escalating to near panic.

“They are essential to this place. They corrupt the very air. Do you smell it?”

Laurel-13 bit back a retort, still looking through her pulse rifle’s scope for any movement.

From the edge of the nearest cliff, reaching up through the thin layer of flowing green ether, several grotesquely shaped hands clawed up the edge. The sickly-white claws dragged up the forms of several emaciated Thrall, all chattering with anticipation.

“Contacts! Multiple contacts!” Her Ghost sputtered, swinging around to keep out of Laurel’s line of sight as she spun to face them.

Eris made a sound that added to the cacophony, a low wail as of grief. A moment later Laurel felt what Eris might have sensed earlier; a wash of cold in her Void senses, negative space where a Guardian would burn with the Light. Laurel shot two thrall and saw more climbing up the cliff even as the first two crumbled to ash. Exploders; even if she took out this first wave she would need to back into the hallway or count on her Ghost to bring her back at a more opportune angle. White claws filled up her field of vision as her Ghost disappeared into transmat space. The gun bucked in her hands.

She readied a Void grenade and tossed while angling back toward the door. The explosion cleared enough breathing room that she thought she would call back to the Tower, then hesitated. Was this normal? She could handle a crowd of Thrall. Would Eris want to hear about it after the strange feeling they had both had about the room?

In her hesitation one of the Cursed Thrall had angled around, and Laurel kicked it full in the chest so that it staggered back into its fellows. A few wild shots into that crowd and the Cursed Thrall exploded, sending several of the swarm dissolving into dust.

More Thrall hands were reaching toward her from the other side, though. She turned and realized they were standing still.

Their sound had changed too, from the chitter to a droning harmony. She stood in a center of the circle, surrounded except for the doorway blocked by stalactites.

She looked at her rifle’s magazine; less than half full, and no heavy ammo in sight. She switched to her shotgun and pulled the trigger, sending three more reeling back even as they crumbled.

“How close are you to a Nova Bomb?” the Ghost asked even as she discharged two more rounds into the growing horde.

She clenched her jaw, “Not close enough.”

“Back through the doorway or push forward? Your choice.”

 _“Actually, it isn’t.”_ The whispers resolved. They no longer lingered at her ear, an impossibility in between her voice and Eris’. Instead, a dark cloud formed next to the latticework of living rock. Eris made another wordless sound, this time with a lilt of recognition.

A figure stepped out of the shadow in the vague shape of a Warlock, blots of darkness clinging to the cloak and horned helmet. Where The Ram should have had empty sockets there were instead three glowing eyes like the thralls’. Like Eris’ eyes.

“Dearest Eris,” said the shadow. “You have brought me a daughter of the orthodox.”

The horde of screeching bone and flesh had stopped completely, and was even now splitting down the middle, the individual Thrall shuffling as they chattered, making room for the newcomer.

“...I did not think our trap would catch this so soon,” Eris said.

Laurel realized that she hadn’t noticed whether Eris was transmitting through her helmet’s speakers. It was equally possible that the shadow’s voice reached into her thoughts. “So how do we make sure it doesn’t trap us in return?”

“He may not be interested in keeping us, once I convince him. My correspondent, my counterpart, my old enemy...”

“You have not returned my letters,” the shadow said. The three eyes blinked and shifted, going dark on the helmet just to appear again like bullet holes needled through his shoulder, then as a blinking line on his arm. Laurel shuddered.

Eris said, “This is Toland, the Shattered. One part of my fireteam. Once and never dead.”

“Toland…” Laurel said quietly, testing the name as she slowly lowered the shotgun from her shoulder. “You’ve mentioned him before, in passing.”

The horns of the Ram tipped in what might have been curiosity or pique. “In passing?”

“In the bright storms and dark memories.” Eris sounded dismissive. “Be cautious.” The words addressed to Laurel were spoken more strongly.

Despite herself, Laurel was brimming with questions. Her goal, her only real want aside from survival of the innocents in the Last City, had been to go to the moon. And here she was, speaking with the only two survivors of that very first expedition. “You were part of the original fireteam. The ones that entered the Hellmouth.”

Toland nodded. The shape of his armor was resolving more clearly now, but he still walked in a cloud of fog and dust, like the motes that floated in lantern light in other halls on the Dreadnaught. No more thrall had climbed out of the crevasse, but the ones that stood in ranks around Laurel now pressed closer together, forming a wall that shifted with a sound like dead leaves.

Laurel took a half step back as he approached, though her survival instincts told her to keep her shotgun lowered. Her Ghost, however, was not so shy.

“Guardians around the system worked to gather and decrypt your journal. You were here, aboard this Dreadnaught, when the Guardian first defeated Oryx.”

“I traveled within the labyrinths beyond. The Overworld, the Sea of Screams, shouts to the Hive’s grand crumbling empire, and I listen. Don’t you hear it? Even Exos go attuned, though you were created for wars smaller and younger than this.”

There was something Eris-like in the way Toland strung words together, but where she seemed wary and full of prophecy, he was arrogant and lofty.

“The Guardian left Oryx’s throne without a king,” Eris said to Laurel. Even though Eris was not physically present, the Guardian got the sense that she was switching her attention between Laurel and Toland, holding almost two separate conversations. It was fascinating, but Laurel also felt like she needed to say more. It was _Laurel_ who was in the most danger from the Thrall, after all, and the other two who had not given the courtesy of putting their physical bodies in danger...if Toland even had a body any more.

“What do you think of this place now?” Laurel tried to meet Toland’s shifting eyes and settled on pinning her gaze to the point where his collarbone met his shoulder.

“Of the teeth and claws of the thing we call a starship? Or of the vacancy? I have already written of this. Eris collects my work. Maybe one day we will bind it into a new journal.”

“But then...if you are so displeased with the vacancy, why haven’t you taken the Osmium Throne?” Laurel said.

Eris softly chuckled.

“You speak in old words,” Toland asked. “Where did you hear that name?”

Laurel hesitated, feeling suddenly as if she had said something out of line. Warlocks were supposed to be masters of secrets, even if they weren’t within Ikora’s closest circle. Were Eris’ words secrets like those? Or were Eris’ words secrets like Hive runes, not Warlock-clarified but invasive and burning? To carefully consider one’s words was an unspoken Warlock mantra.

“Eris told me,” Laurel said, and felt just guilt. “She read it in the journal.”

Toland tipped his head. Smoke flowed, shifting like the water flowing uphill in the Dreadnaught river. “Eris remembers many things.”

Eris herself was quiet, but it was a tense quiet that Laurel could almost hear. Her breath through Laure’s comm had stopped. Then she seemed to come to a decision to speak. “Why _do_ you linger? There are bright courts beyond the reach of this Light.”

Toland seemed keen to avoid that question. “Is this your protege, Eris?” he asked rather bluntly, contrasting Eris’ darker tone.

Laurel winced internally, the words so casually asked resonating with what she had been asking herself ever since Eris had taken an interest in her.

There was no response from Eris. Laurel’s Ghost looked to Toland, back in her direction, then back to Toland. The little light betrayed her own nervousness.

There was a soft sound like the rushing of stale air from Toland’s ethereal form. A sigh? “I see.” he said in an almost defeated tone.

The Thrall had been inert until this point. Now, they began their twitching movements again, slowly beginning to crawl toward the stranded Guardian. “Um...Laurel? Eris?” her Ghost asked in a near-wail, circling to look behind them.

They were only a few heartbeats away from Laurel when the first one threw back its head and screamed. She raised her shotgun again, distracted by the thought of switching to the nimble scout rifle or of hitting thrall point-blank before she had to reload --

There was a sudden rushing sound that wrenched her attention away from the thrall, roaring as it echoed through the room. Green lights flared at the four corners of the room, the green ether from the river seeming to etch pathways in the floor as it soaked into the ever-brightening lights. Laurel felt her own chassis heat up as she tried to think of a plan. Now there was a _pillar of light_ in the hallway behind her, blocking her only exit. And if being a Guardian had taught her anything, it was not to walk into surprise pools of electric-looking energy --

Her Ghost folded herself into invisibility. Laurel switched weapons. One thrall clawed at her shoulder, but she put two shots into its head and moved on to the next thrall, trying to clear a space around her. The next one didn’t drop so easily, claws coming up against her helmet and trapping her gun between the thrall and Laurel’s chest. The Light was cool and strong within her now, though, Voidlight dancing at the edge of her vision and smoothing out her motions.

Laurel reached into the Void and made her own will into the Nova Bomb. The moment she thought about it the energy lanced out of her, picking her up off her feet for a moment and slamming into the thrall around her. Her view of Toland was lost in the blue-purple blast. Her feet hit the floor again, and when she landed a wash of exultation and power surged back into her from the Void ability. She could feel Toland at the outskirts of her awareness, a black pit of alien energy with just spatters of Void at the edge like the algae at the lip of a hot spring. Those green pillars were burned into her awareness now too, having resolved from columns of unfocused light into more defined, more _humanoid_ shapes. They felt like shells, constructs in the shape of Guardians.

The one closest to her now, the one standing in the corridor behind her, resolved into the twisted facsimile of an Exo Sunsinger. Laurel caught a sense of the construct’s power in the aftermath of her own Void perception.

“Who are you?” the construct said. Green flames formed the shape of mandibles and eyes with heavy brow plates. Thrall were scrambling over the ashy remains of their packmates toward Laurel, so she whirled away from the construct only to see it reach out a transparent hand in an ornate glove. “Don’t leave me.” Even as she backed away from it, Laurel shuddered. Toland had gone so far as to imbue them with slight whiffs of personality and ability, like memories or eulogies.

Eris had gone quiet again. Laurel could hear the absence in her comm, but the noises around it were too loud for her to heed the gap. She shot another thrall dead, jumped as far as she could to the left to try to angle around the pack without getting stuck against a wall. No more thrall seemed to be climbing out of the ravine, but there were enough that they were almost jostling one another to get into a circle around her.

She drifted to the chitinous floor several meters to the side of the stalactite-covered door, and as far from the maw of the river’s bottomless depths as possible. Paying too much attention to her attackers could easily lead her right off the edge if she strayed too close. Her jump had given her a few moments respite from the attacking thrall, and she chanced a look over at Toland. He was still standing in front of the blocked door, seemingly focused on his own spectral constructs.

Finally, Eris spoke. Her voice rose steadily as she let her anger show. “What have you done?” Then a pause, as if realizing that her voice was confined to Laurel’s ear. “What has he done?”

Laurel skidded to the side to avoid a swiping arm. “Don’t ask me!”

“Let me speak to him.”

“Ghost, transmit her voice.”

Eris’ words projected across the room to where Toland stood, hunched over slightly. In between the shifting crowd of thrall he was an oddly still point. “You draw these specters to tempt me.”

“Or for my own power. It was the voices of death itself that I followed here.”

“We are alike enough in this.”

 _This is why_ , Laurel thought as she watched the silhouette. _This is why Toland lingers. Because Eris is here on the mortal plane, and he is fond or bored or tied to her. Because he is not allowed within the confidence of the creatures he died for, the Deathsinger to whom he sacrificed himself._

And what was _Laurel_ sacrificing herself to? She wanted to explore the Moon, but if the Hive tunnels with their residual poison were anything like Toland’s machinations, they would dredge up all sorts of accusations along with the runes and onyx spires. Toland’s Warlock sensibilities had been twisted into something like an interrogation, all knives and eyes. Eris’ Hunter sensibilities had been subsumed by the Pit, too. Some Guardians acted like she was a traitor for surviving, a traitor for returning to the Tower alone and asking for favors.

Eris wore the trappings of the enemy, but she had proven over and over again that she was not.

Laurel began to feel like she was the only one in the room who didn’t speak the language. Among the silent Thrall, and the conversation between this ethereal Toland and the disembodied voice of Eris, she could feel herself readying for a fight. The tension in the air was palpable.

She could also shine like the edge of a Hunter knife. Laurel raised her pulse rifle, wondering whether she would even be able to attack the figures that were now fully resolved out of the columns of light. One stood at each corner, taller than the thralls, each in the shape of a Guardian like the one she now faced. ‘What were they doing here?’ she thought.

The Exo Sunsinger answered her unspoken question. She looked around as if startled by the thrall. Her presence in the Light was distinct from theirs, but still tainted with Darkness. Laurel hesitated.

The Sunsinger charged forward, her own green rifle-construct raised.

Laurel dodged a full-on charge. The Sunsinger barreled past her, head down, then turned and planted her feet. Laurel fired before she could. It was just like fighting the facsimiles of the Iron Lords, strung up and infected by SIVA. These, though, were more confusing, their Light-sense switching back and forth from Guardian personalities to patches of Darkness as if Toland had not correctly completed whatever ritual was supposed to bring them to life. The other three were beginning to circle, closing in behind the still motionless ranks of Thralls. Surrounded, Laurel had to do something.

Taking a chance, she fired two shots intentionally wide, getting the Sunsinger’s attention. “What do you want?” Laurel said, trying to keep her tone calm.

The Sunsinger lit her own fist on fire. The Radiance swarmed up her arm, green instead of it’s usually comforting orange, and then that fire was filling up Laurel’s vision. The Sunsinger caught her by the throat.

Laurel expected to feel the pain of the burn, but there was no sensation of being grabbed along with it; the Sunsinger’s hand was ghostly, but her power burned through the Light in half-real sputters like a bad signal.

Her voice was garbled, her face the green fog of the smoke from a Hive ritual. “Who are _you_? What do you do in this dark place?”

The Sunsinger gestured, and even though her hands were smoke, the Solar energy hit like a punch. Laurel reeled to the side. The voice sounded - disconnected, not just without source but divorced from source entirely in a way that even Toland’s was not.

“Oh,” Eris breathed in her ear, as if she had realized something.

Laurel shot the Sunsinger twice in the stomach as the Voidwalker regained her footing.

Whatever rules that governed the constructs allowed the blast to hit. The Sunsinger reeled back, almost phasing through the Thrall behind her, then sent out another blast of energy.

The explosion knocked Laurel in among the Thrall. They didn’t move, but the strange forest of corpse-gray legs was no less unsettling for standing and staring. Laurel pushed herself to her feet. The construct was as strong as a Crucible champion, far stronger than a relatively young Guardian like Laurel knew how to face; even if they were matched in terms of raw Light. Laurel didn’t often pit her speed and cunning against other Guardians in the arena. She was beginning to think she should have.

The pacing of another one of the shadow-Guardians had brought it within Laurel’s line of sight. She pushed herself to her feet and slung her rifle to her back, trading it for the shotgun. If they were going to continue closing the gap, she needed to be prepared. Taking a quick look to her left, she saw the oncoming Guardian construct was a Titan, also bathed in the sickening green light, holding a sword made of the same. Among the copse of Thrall, she saw Toland still standing in a clearing, the last two pseudo-Guardians closing in to join him.

The Titan’s sense flashed with Light, and it spoke. “You should not be in this place. It is not safe...nowhere is safe.” He rushed suddenly, and Laurel acted on reflex, pumping the shotgun into his chest. He stumbled, but did not fall. The green light that made up his shimmering form seemed to bleed from his gut, though it gave the same illusion of flowing up from the wound.

Feeling claustrophobia begin to take hold as the two constructs began slowly pressing her towards the bulwark of Thrall, she decided to go for the center of the room again. If Toland the Shattered was the source of all this, perhaps he was the key to ending it.

She sprinted toward the two Guardians, sliding between them at the last moment even as the Titan swung his sword at her. She jumped, using the Void to guide her leap as she blinked above more of the Thrall, and landed a few short meters from Toland.

His shadowy form gave a mocking clap at her escape, though no sound came from it. To either side of him, the last two greenlight constructs stood as statues; a pair of Hunters focused on their mark. They approached slowly. One held a knife, the other a length of bone - a rib, from the curve.

Laurel’s reserve of Light wasn’t strong enough yet for a Nova Bomb, and the thralls were closing in behind her. She aimed down the sights at Toland, and took one step back.

More green light flared. Laurel winced, expecting yet another doppleganger to join the fight. Bringing her hand up instinctively, she was almost knocked off her feet as Eris tore her way into the world. It wasn’t transmat; Laurel didn’t know what Eris had done, but it was not mechanical. Eris had simply willed herself to the Dreadnaught, and the Dreadnaught had seen kinship in her, and… Laurel remembered the rumors around the Tower that Eris had gone too deep into the dark.

Now Eris stood up from the crouch in which she had landed and stared at Toland with an expression that Laurel could not see. From her voice, it was fury. “You send my friends against me? Our friends?”

That was why there were four, Laurel realized. Four fireteam members left. She turned to look for the Exo Sunsinger and found that she had been approaching through the line of Thrall. In a flash of insight, she remembered such an Exo from Eris’ ill-fated journey into the Hellmouth; Eriana-3. That must mean that the Titan from a few moments ago was Vell Tarlowe. The implications of just what this all meant whirled around in her mind as she tried to comprehend the greater story playing out around her. The Sunsinger noticed her distraction immediately, and began moving toward her, pushing through the Thrall.

Laurel jerked and fired. Just like with the other phantom, the bullets dissolved into smoke and left scars that seemed to only slightly slow the Exo down. Behind her, Laurel heard an explosion that activated the dampeners in her ears as Eris dropped to the floor on a knee and a palm. Where she landed, the floor erupted into a blaze of green fire that flashed for only a moment before ebbing.

Laurel shot the Sunsinger again, unable to hear the two full clips she emptied into it. The impact from her pulse rifle caused the other to hesitate, then stop completely. For a moment the Sunsinger seemed confused, looking down at the gun in her own hands, giving an unexpected but welcome respite.

The footfalls and the crackle of the green fire faded away. As her hearing reactivated, Laurel took a chance and glanced back at Eris. The other was standing now, defiant against the shapes and their creator. Toland was considering her, and finally, he spoke. “Thank you for finally joining us, dearest Eris.” he said, even as the two Hunters moved towards her.

They seemed to say something to her, as Eris’ head cocked to one side questioningly. Nevertheless, both Hunters dropped all pretenses and lunged forward. Laurel watched one draw a wicked-looking knife sheathed in green flame, as the other snapped her wrist, sending a narrow throwing knife straight at Eris’ throat.

Laurel shouted. She tried to harness the Light within her to summon a Nova Bomb, a grenade, anything --

Eris had not raised her hands. She still held the green orb that wreathed the chip of stone; Laurel could see it shining in Eris’ arms. Then the two Hunters were floating above her, struggling as if trying to swim through the air that held them.

Toland screeched. The noise was small but piercing, and immediately set Laurel on edge as she thought about her explorations on the Moon. By the time she had gotten there the Hive hordes had been thinned out, but there was a certain hollow, dessicated quality to them. On the other hand, the Hive on the Dreadnaught were more fecund, corpses instead of skeletons. Toland sang in the tongue of Omnigul, the invader; he sung in the language of the Moon.

Laurel shivered, but when Toland spoke, he addressed Eris.

“I welcome you to this place where the worlds thin. But you have visited before. You have walked in these halls and these pools.”

“And that is why you drew me here!” Eris’ deep voice echoed. She almost sang, too, but her voice was fully human. “You set this trap with the bodies of our fireteam.”

“Not the bodies. Just the memories. But is it not a sweet look into the grave?”

“You put this Guardian in danger.”

“You could join me, Eris. Join us. Even the artifact you hold resonates with the movements of this place. Let it rock you to sleep,” Toland entreated, ignoring Laurel’s danger almost pointedly.

Eris snarled. “Let Laurel go. Call off the Thrall.”

Toland quietly chuckled, “Oh, they were never mine. My power scares them, chides them to not test my creations, but they wait on their own terms …”

Almost on cue, the thralls beside him rustled in unison. Laurel saw them look up at the floating phantoms, as if checking to see whether a predator was asleep. There was a moment of still silence like the moment before a sniper goes for the kill. Then all at once, they charged her.

Eris leapt for the facsimile of the Sunsinger at the same time.

“You were the last light I ever saw," the Sunsinger murmured, and then Laurel was focused entirely on shooting Thrall. One after another they came for her and fell as she sidestepped and shot, trying to bridge the gap between herself and Eris.

Even above the chorused screeches of the Thrall all around her, she heard Eris’ words echo throughout the chamber walls.

“You are not the Eriana I let go in that pit.” Eris said, even as she met the construct. Laurel watched as the not-Eriana raised her fist, burning with the green light of her Scorch. But at that crucial point, Eris seemed to hesitate, as if not wanting to do harm to her former fireteam member.

Then she showed no more hesitation. She reached out with her orb, touching it’s translucent surface to the Guardian’s chest. In a flash of green light and smoke, the orb reacted, glowing brighter and brighter until Laurel had to look away, seeing for the first time that the Thrall were cowering at the awful light. She took advantage of their distraction and tried to clear a path to the doorway out of the hall with her shotgun.

The light ebbed, and Eris landed heavily as if she had floated into the air, touching the floor with a grace that belied her inner fury. Behind her, Eriana-3 melted into green smoke and dissipated into the dusty air.

Two more of the spirits had circled around. Laurel swept a circle around her with the mouth of her shotgun, pausing for a second just to realize that the number of thrall seemed actually to be thinning out. She had killed enough of them to halt even their mad charges, and no more boiled up from the hidden river. It struck her as darkly ironic now that she had ever thought of phenomena like that as beautiful. Did Eris still think so?

The next two spirits to approach her were the Hunters. Now that they were no longer floating, Laurel could see more clearly that one was wearing armor of bone and carapaces and the other a billowing cloak and scarf. As before, one held a rib and the other a knife.

“You’re one of us, Eris,” said the Hunter with the bone armor. Her voice sounded young and nasal, yet at the same time impossibly old and hollow.

Eris turned to look at Laurel, three eyes casting a green glow along the tops of her cheeks where the skin met the veil. “This is Sai Mota, Hunter of the Dusktorn.”

As taken aback as she had been by the sudden reticence of the thrall, Laurel was just as shocked by Eris’ calm tone. She sounded like Ikora teaching a class of young Guardians, not a Dark-touched woman staring at her murdered friends. The respect staggered her.

Or was it an attempt at acting unflappable?

Eris turned back to Sai. “Not any more.” She turned to where Toland stood behind the remaining thrall, addressing him as if the ghosts were unimportant. “They took my powers and I will cancel out these phantoms - then we will have twisted the reckoning even farther.”

The other Hunter shadow raised a hand as if holding a Ghost, although there was nothing sitting on his gloved palm. “Aw, Eris, don’t be so serious. The Guardians put a weight on you. You don’t owe them. Do what you want to do.” This voice was male, and so casual that Laurel almost thought she recognized it; surely three different Guardians at the hangar bar sounded this way when they were talking to their friends.

Eris did look back, turning her gaze on the Hunter with an intent that did not make her regard for Toland any less acerbic. He, her gesture seemed to say, was next.

Her words were soft, though. “Do not think I am not tempted. The dead stand in for the dead quite finely, I think. You know neither of us have the heart to pretend they are alive.”

Did Toland flicker? Laurel readjusted her grip on her weapon.

“And why cast them as a threat?” Eris continued. “It only makes them feel less real.”

“Oh, Eris,” Toland chastised. “You should know the workings of the logic of the sword.”

The three remaining constructs spoke with one voice. It was not quite Eriana’s voice, and not quite Toland’s; the mastermind stood near the stalactites still. Either his arms were crossed or his form was becoming even more ghostly and less distinct, only the basic shape of a person or a tombship left behind. Laurel thought that she heard even Eris’ voice bubbling up out of the cacophony like a distress signal just out of reach. (Was this what the Reef had sounded like when the Queen had died?)

“ **The world is not the edge of the sword,** ” they said. “ **Nothing so bold, nothing so certain. The world is the atoms of the air where it touches the blade, unharmed and uncut but touched always by this killing thing.** ”

“Enough,” said Eris, and wrapped her arms around the green fire she held as if it would keep her warm. She stepped backward from the spirits, and began to speak under her breath.

Toland or the spirits themselves did not give her a chance to make any incantations. They turned toward _Laurel._

Laurel knew exactly what they were doing; target the weak link to keep Eris from performing her ritual. Gritting her teeth, she knew that if Eris was distracted by her peril, neither of them would make it out of this predicament. She would _not_ be the weak link. Widening her stance, and reaching to her back, she pulled out her heavy weapon.

Her time spent as a Guardian may have been short compared to other veterans of the Vanguard, but her time fighting SIVA had forged her abilities in iron. The Iron Lords had taught her that true strength was held deep within her own self, and that she could not expect any enemy to give quarter. That deep strength was what allowed her to survive the SIVA crisis, and she now held the culmination of that strength; her sword, the Young Wolf’s Howl.

The three not-Guardians descended on her, either oblivious or simply unconcerned with her newfound courage. She hoped Eris was not so oblivious. With a shout, she swung the exotic sword down, cleaving the musty air and slamming the blade into the ground.

With a rush of solar flame, the ground around her exploded. Omar, Tarlowe, and Sai were pushed back, but quickly recovered moments later. However, those few moments were all Laurel needed.

She leapt back, easing through the air on a cushion of light to put some distance between her and her attackers, trying to also draw them away from Eris, silently thanking herself for clearing out so many thrall earlier. Readying Young Wolf’s Howl for another mad rush, Laurel noticed the two Hunters hanging back, in fact turning back towards Eris! ‘Of course they would play conservative’, she berated herself. Their main goal was keeping Eris from completing her incantation.

The Titan, however, kept barreling forward, streams of Arc energy crackling behind him as he ran towards her. Laurel thought quickly, working out a way to stay alive and keep Eris undisturbed. She quickly sidestepped his rush, and swung her sword. The blade passed through the ethereal being, but not leaving him untouched. She bolted past him as he leaked that odd green blood, and moved back towards Eris and the Hunters.

She leapt again, more to throw off their aim than anything, and slammed her sword into the ground once more, sending the two Hunters back, and leaving Laurel between them and Eris. Perfect.

She tossed a Void grenade towards them, letting its small projectiles split and twist through the air to splash against their targets. One of them rolled, winking out of sight in a plume of green mist, just in time for Laurel to see the Titan encroaching again, his wounds apparently healed.

With shotgun raised, he began raining shells onto Laurel, the first few slugs splashing against her shields with an otherworldly acidic hiss. She brought her sword to bear, channeling it’s solar energies into a barrier between herself and the Titan’s onslaught. He kept pressing forward, firing his weapon just often enough to keep her guard up, and keeping just out of her sword’s range.

‘It doesn’t matter. So long as I can keep them occupied--’ Her thought was cut off by the return of the Hunter. It got in close, the back of Laurel’s mind telling her this was Sai Mota, the Bladedancer, and hooked her arm around Laurel’s. Her guard down, the sword’s protective barrier ebbed. Laurel tried to focus, to squirm out of the Hunter’s spectral grip and unleash another concussive blast with Young Wolf’s Howl, but Sai was already moving, twisting Laurel’s wrist until her grip on the blade faltered, and it dropped to the chitinous floor with a clang. Apparently she wasn’t taking any chances either. Sai’s wraith kicked the weapon, sending it skidding a few meters back and away from Laurel. She then wrenched Laurel’s arm back and around, pinning it.

The lack of a taunt was more frightening than Laurel expected. If this had been the Crucible, people would have been shouting. The Guardian who had grabbed her would have said something jovially aggressive before sending her to wake up, slightly dazed, with her Ghost in front of her face. Now there was just the rustling of the thrall and the sound of her own footsteps echoing away.

The Young Wolf’s Howl spun to a stop at Eris’ feet.

Crota’s Bane looked on it with baleful wide eyes. She drew the green orb and the rock floating inside it out from between her hands and held it at her side, then thrust out her other hand. The sword hilt smacked into her gloved palm.

‘Would it even light for her?’ Laurel thought in a flash. ‘Would the Iron Temple offer her its power?’

As it turned out, Eris transformed and borrowed that power. Whether Lord Saladin would have recognized it Laurel did not know, but the wraiths and the remaining thrall seemed to; they all immediately turned toward Eris, even Sai relaxing her grip. The sword began to burn green, the energy from Eris’ artifact clinging to the blade like fog on water. Where it had been molten orange it turned the acid green of Hive eyes.

She pointed the blade at each wraith in turn, starting with the Titan and ending with Sai. Her sweeping gestures were broad, almost theatrical, but precise; Laurel did not doubt that Eris could pick Sai off without harming her.

But the wraiths were eager to fight. The Titan raised one hand, his fist crackling with Arc energy, and lunged toward Eris. Before he could bend to strike the ground Eris stabbed the sword under his ribs, so that as he curved downward he fell onto the blade. He shouted, the first noise Laurel had heard him make, and Eris flinched and bared her teeth as if she had also been hurt.

Of course, she had; the wraiths with the forms of her friends were still coming for her. The Hunter in the long cloak spun and danced toward her, but Eris slid to the side and suddenly she was hooking Sai’s arm just like Sai had done to Laurel. She slammed against the apparition, sending smoke billowing out from it. The grip loosened, and Laurel broke free and grabbed for her pulse rifle.

Even as she turned to fire she saw Eris pulling Sai backward over her knee and letting her fall to the ground almost gracefully; but the sword followed after, flash of green and Laurel never really saw Eris stab down, since her shoulders were in the way and the one remaining Hunter had now seen Laurel’s gun --

The thralls chittered. One jumped straight through the Hunter apparition as it turned to face Eris, coming at Laurel with claws raised. Laurel shot it between the eyes. This one seemed to have started a new urge for battle within the confused thrall, so she downed two more with one shot each.

By then the room was almost clear. A pack of three or four thrall near the back of the room ran between Laurel and Eris and out the door, retreating to the safety -- or at least the labyrinthine hidden places -- of the Dreadnaught. Some other Guardian would find them, Laurel thought. Someone who was having a less strange day than this.

That left Eris, the other Hunter, Laurel, and Toland. Eris grabbed the other Hunter by the cloak. He scrabbled with his knife, but did not seem to have any other weapon - and Eris was operating on another level now, seeming to choose when the shadows would be solid and when they would be ghosts. The cloak bunched in her sword-hand, but especially with the sword in place she should not have been able to drag him across the room, should not have had the momentum to hold on to him if he more than symbolically struggled.

Eris looked over her shoulder. “This is Omar Agah,” she told Laurel. “Our team’s heart as Eriana was its head.”

They were in the realm of symbol now, Laurel thought. At some point, they had crossed over not into the throne-worlds, but into some shared dream of Eris and Toland’s, written in the mad metaphor of the journal Eris read.

Laurel checked her ammunition.

Eris threw the ghost of Omar Agah onto the ground at Toland’s feet.

Toland’s features resolved again into a face without the mask. Perhaps both he and Eris were intentionally changing their appearance - although now that Laurel noticed, she saw the slight shake in Eris’ hands. (Eris - the only mortal person in the room.)

“Why do you send me this reminder?” Eris’ voice was strained.

“We are both ghosts, Eris.” Toland’s three eyes were more narrow than Eris’, his face more gaunt but unmarred by black ichor like the tears that flowed from her eyes. “To deny this is to deny the plain truth of the world.”

“I _lived_!” She brandished the sword, but it was not as a weapon but as proof of her own solid hands. “I work, and risk, while you whisper in the ears of unfeeling queens.”

“They listen,” Toland whispered.

“Do you wish to kill him or shall I?”

Toland did not answer. The wraith of Omar was quiescent, the knife still held in one hand. “Lead us to believe…” it murmured.

Toland and Eris looked at one another for a while. Laurel felt like she was witnessing a ritual she did not entirely understand, the way some fundamental context was missing from the Court of Oryx.

After Laurel had looked down at her ammo counter one more time, Toland waved a hand. The wraith disappeared, becoming a carpet of green smoke before blowing away entirely. Eris held the sword out, and Laurel realized that she was offering it back to her.

She approached warily; Toland still seemed to be corporeal and aware enough to cast a skeptical look at the young Guardian as she reached her arm out to its full, considerable length and took the sword. The green light died from it too, leaving her with the familiar molten sheen. She silently thanked Saladin for her weapon of last resort.

Eris raised her left hand, the hand holding the ball of green light and its artifact by invisible ties, and pushed.

The moment the light touched Toland’s forehead he dissolved into smoke like the others. Eris held her position, standing there like a gate guardian until the smoke had completely faded away.

When she turned to Laurel, her expression was unreadable. Laurel expected the usual Vanguard commentary, but Eris simply remained silent for a long time. Laurel wasn’t sure what she could say. The weight of what had just happened must have weighed exponentially more on Eris’ shoulders. Old wounds opened, only to be haphazardly sewn back closed.

Finally, Laurel’s Ghost broke the silence. “Look, the doorway.” It said, and even it’s tinny voice seemed to speak softly.

Both Eris and Laurel looked at the overgrown doorway that Toland had stood in front of only minutes earlier. The myriad of stalactites that had blocked the opening like rows of jagged teeth had started to decay, crumbling to ash just as the thrall Laurel had slain. Beyond was a shallow dark room, though something small glinted inside.

The Ghost materialized as Laurel opened her palm, and it floated in, illuminating the area within with soft light. It gave the inside a few short scans before speaking again, “Eris, you may want to come see this.”

With what looked like some effort, Eris stepped forward, into the room beyond, and Laurel followed, keeping her shotgun in-hand as a precaution. Eris gave a small intake of breath, and Laurel eased into the cramped room to see what was inside.

Dead Ghosts.

Sitting inert on a small shelf carved into the wall were four small Ghosts, arranged neatly on the hewn chitin. The floor of the room and the shelf was covered in dust, but the Ghosts themselves were completely and curiously immaculate.

“After some quick searching through the Archives. I believe these belonged to--”

“I know whom they belonged to, Ghost.” Eris said quietly, staring down at the row of memories before them.

“We’ll take them back to the Tower, in case you want to research them further.”

Eris nodded, “The Darkness ebbs. I will meet you back at the Tower.”

She turned, and began walking towards the hallway. Laurel thought of following, but decided it would be better to just transmat now; to allow Eris to sort through the feelings she was assuredly dealing with.

“Laurel? How did Eris get here? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She shrugged, “I don’t know, Ghost. I knew this place drew me like the Moon does. It feels like a secret place, somewhere most Guardians don’t touch. There’s even more mystery to it than I thought.”

“To the Dreadnaught?”

“To the Hive, Toland and Eris,” she looked down at her sword, the Young Wolf’s Howl. “ To my role in all of this.”

“Don’t be too discouraged.”

“I’m not.” She smiled, trusting the Ghost could tell in the way her voice had gone soft. She felt more like a _Warlock_ than she had since she first learned to channel the Void. This was what she was _intended_ for. Now that the fear was melting away, the adrenaline in its place made her walk with her head higher and her back straighter.

“Do you think we’ll see Toland the Shattered again?” her Ghost asked after a short pause.

She sighed, “I’m sure he’s not done with Eris. Their history together is long and filled with grief.”

“We reassured her we would go back to the Tower. Eris may want to contact us about those Ghosts...or if she needs more bait,” it said wryly, hovering just above her palm.

“Yeah.” Laurel laughed softly. “I’m not afraid, now that I know what she can do, but maybe we’ll ask for some warning next time.”

“I believe fireteams usually give one another at least some information in orbit.”

Laurel had been reborn at a strange time, other Guardians sometimes said. The Dreadnaught itself, a needle in the skin of the universe, still bled strange energies that she could feel far beyond the room where the stalactites had crumbled. So much strangeness that if she had died in there the ship would not have noticed, the landscape would not have changed. Instead of feeling grim, that was reassuring.

* * *

**Dreadnaught II**

Dearest Eris,

I am so pleased that you were able to come in person to see me (though you left far too soon). When we spoke you asked why I had sent you those reminders. Do you now understand? Do you see what I was trying to convey through that elegant dance of battle? Their purpose, and to so much greater extent _our_ purpose, is to hone ourselves into ever-sharpening blades. But what were we in that Spine? One blade unsharpened, one blade lost, and one blade rusted. I was only trying to show you the state we have been reduced to. I hope that they served to buff off that rust. I am sure that they sharpened your young blade.

I do hope that you visit me again. I will be here, and there, watching and waiting. Yours are the steps I will always recognize, be assured of that. Hopefully the next time we meet, you are closer to where I stand, and I will be closer to my answers.

P.S. I noticed they were missing. I am glad you found them. I tried to keep them in mint condition, but you know how the Hive can be.

* * *

**Vestibule of the Spine**

One little, two little, three little Ghosts. Six were lost and … one alive. I will keep them here, among my trinkets. The Guardians see, but they do not look closely, and they are wise to do so. They do not need to be reminded of the fog, do not - Ikora says it is all right that the trappings of the Hive comfort me. She understands that I must see my enemy to know them. It is clear that I am not a Guardian in disguise.

Some, though, like the young Voidwalker, seem to understand. She did not feel trapped, did not feel burdened by the need for someone of the Light to walk those halls. I thank her.

These Ghosts could have been marks of mourning, but I find that I bear too many of those for these new ones to call to me, no matter how graceful and close to the heart their shapes. He made me look at those faces. He looked back at me when Omar fell between us, and thought - I think I knew. Thought that there was communication in the battle itself, in the logic he holds so dear and close. In the fight as its own concept, devoid of context or history.

I am not a Guardian any more. He and I have this in common.

That will not come between me and my Guardians. Not until the world is afire.

I should count again, to be sure. We have been lost track of, so many times. One little Ghost …  


End file.
